Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake

Seriously, how long did you think I was going to wait before breaking in the bundt pan? Apparently not much more than 24 hours. This is the Coconut Lemon Bundt Cake from Veganomicon. And it’s a very forgiving recipe. I actually ended up being short on sugar and probably subbed about 1/4 cup of brown sugar for some of it. I was also probably short a little bit of lemon zest. And then we have my fun-loving oven that decided to pop up by 100 degrees during the first 20 minutes of baking. I turned it down twice and never was able to get it all the way down to the suggested cooking temperature. No matter. It came out moist on the inside, lightly browned and a little bit crisp on the outside. I suspect the crispiness will go away once it cools which is always what seems to happen. But I love that the crazy oven temps didn’t ruin the cake. And just look at it!

coconut lemon bundt cake from veganomicon

Mexican Chocolate Doughnuts

So today was the bake-off at Cosmo’s Vegan Shoppe. I’m not one to develop my own recipes, but for the fun of it thought I’d go ahead and enter something. Since my last doughnut experience was good, I thought I’d work out the mini doughnut pan and try to see if I could come up with chocolate doughnuts. But I’m always looking for an excuse to mix chilies and chocolate, so I thought Mexican Chocolate Doughnuts!

My mini doughnut pan came with a chocolate doughnut recipe so I started with that, subbed the animal bits and tossed in some cinnamon. For the ganache, I used the recipe in Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World and tossed in some chili powder. I felt like the doughnuts were a little bit denser, heavier than I would like. I think next time I try them I will half the egg replacer and try something else like maybe souring the soy milk with vinegar. But no matter what I thought, the little guys won Most Creative Recipe! Yay! I got a medal and an apron and a cook book as prizes. Yipee! I was really surprised, but after I tasted the other entries I was even more surprised. There were no “losers” there. Everything was super nummy. Hooray for vegans!

mexican chocolate doughnuts

Mexican Chocolate Doughnuts

for doughnuts
1 ½ cups flour
⅓ cup cocoa
1 teaspoon baking powder
⅛ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon cinnamon
3 teaspoons EnergE Egg Replacer, whisked with 4 tablespoons of warm water
⅔ cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ cup plain soymilk
2 tablespoons Earth Balance, melted

for ganache
⅛ cup soy milk
2 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
1 tablespoon maple syrup
¼ teaspoon chili powder (ground chilies, not the spice mix)

Preheat oven to 325 F.

Lightly spray mini doughnut pan with cooking spray. Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, salt and cinnamon. In another bowl, mix egg replacer mixture, sugar, vanilla, soy milk and Earth Balance until well mixed. Add flour mixture to wet mixture a little at a time until mixed. Fill each doughnut mold about 2/3 full. You may need to spread with your finger to even out. Bake for 8 minutes. If you’re using a full sized doughnut pan you will need to bake longer. Cool slightly. Remove carefully and continue cooling on a rack.

When doughnuts are cool, make Chili Chocolate Ganache. Bring soy milk to a boil in a small pan. Remove from heat and add chili powder, chocolate and maple syrup. Mix with a spatula until melted and smooth. Drizzle over tops of doughnuts with a spoon.

2007 vegan bakeoff medal

Pistachio Rose Water Cookies

I have an unnatural obsession with rose flavored food. So when I saw this recipe in Veganomicon, I knew it was only a matter of time before I got all up into it. I mean, that bottle of rosewater in my fridge isn’t going to use itself, now is it? So since we’re having a cookie exchange with the vegan lunch group this weekend, I thought I’d bake up a mess of them. And they did not disappoint! Although my oven did. After having it all properly pre-heated according to my handy oven thermometer, after I put in the cookies it decided to shoot up 75 degrees. Grrrr. So about 10 of them are a little overdone. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to keep & eat them. Damnit! Oh, and the dough is really stiff. I can’t even tell you how happy I was to watch my Kitchen Aid mixer cranking away at it. Ha! Better you than me!

Pistachio Rosewater Cookies - Veganomicon

Fennel Gratin

Since fennel is in season and reasonably priced, I thought I’d try something that takes a lot of it. Fennel Gratin out of Vegan Italiano it is! The capers and lemon juice gave it a nice sharp flavor. I wonder what the nutritional value of fennel is? Google says, it’s high in vitamin C, fiber and potassium among other things. Yay!

Just out of the oven

fennel gratin

Dressed in fennel leaves and olives

fennel gratin dressed

On my plate…ignore the big black hair….

fennel gratin plate

Lazy Indian food

Remember how I said I haven’t been to the store? Well, I lied. Sunday evening I went to the Taj Mahal market just before I gorged on Ethiopian food. I bought some odds and ends, beans and spices, plus some ready-to-eat box food. They have quite a few varieties that are vegan, so I usually stock up on them when I go by there.

They came in handy because tonight I needed food. And still haven’t bought real groceries. So I pulled down a ravi dosa mix I already had on hand, a box of sambar (spicy soup) and a box of dal palak (beans & spinach). I know dal isn’t what you normally put inside dosa, but it ate up fine, so there.

Cooking the dosa

ravi dosa cooking

Sambar heating up. Really other than making a bunch of dirty dishes, this was stupid easy.

sambar cooking

Dosa ready for eatin’, one not yet wrapped so you can see the dal inside.

ravi dosa finished

The dosa mix was literally “just add water.” I couldn’t believe how easily and quickly they cooked up. Next time maybe I’ll make a proper batch of Indian potatoes to stuff inside. Or a sambar. Or even coconut chutney which is the only thing I missed this evening.

Oh yeah, and everyone wave to the dust on my camera sensor. “hi dust!”